Little Wonders
by Opapea
Summary: He stares at Rachel for a moment, thinking this may be the oddest sight he’s ever seen." Sequel to "In Ten Years" - Future Will/Rachel, this time with 100% more Finn action!


A/N: I can't leave these characters alone! I meant for this to be a small drabble about how Finn sees Will and Rachel after the events of "In Ten Years," but somehow or another Finn wound up with a wife and this turned almost more into his story than theirs, but oh well. It's also really fluffy, but I like happiness – sue me. Please review!

This is a sequel to a previous fic, "In Ten Years." I'd read it first, but essentially 10 years after the events of the first season Will and Rachel get their act together and get married. Thanks for reading! :)

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He stares at Rachel for a moment, thinking this may be the oddest sight he's ever seen.

She's sitting in the teacher's lounge, infant in her lap, bag overflowing with diapers, toys, and a stack of papers at her side. Finn Hudson never imagined he'd see her "go domestic," but she did – and she glows.

"Finn!" Before he's even through the door she's thrown an arm around him, and he feels the little girl she's holding pressed into his side before she pulls back, looking up at him with a smile so wide he's not sure how her face is still together. She looks older, but not in the same weathered, too-much-sun-bathing-as-a-teen way that so many of their former peers do. Just…mature. Like a mother.

"Hey Rach! Cassie told me that Mr. Schu – Will – told her that you'd be here this morning." It's weird to call his former Glee coach/Spanish teacher/father-figure by his first name, but it's even weirder to think that he and Rachel are married and have a baby girl. Stranger things have happened to those he used to know in high school (Puck is studying to be a Rabbi, Quinn met a nice girl named Molly at college and they're married and raising three girls on a ranch in Montana), but while this development was somewhat unexpected, it wasn't all that surprising.

They catch up for about an hour while he holds little Claire, and while he's totally paying attention to Rachel and what she's saying, he's absorbed in her daughter and every little move she makes. She's only four months old so she doesn't move a whole lot, but he wonders if every baby stares at you the way she does. He's about to find out – Cassie's due in five months.

He glances around the teacher's lounge, feeling out of place. He maybe came in here once as a student, but now that his wife got a job at good ol' McKinley High he suspects he's going to be sitting in here quite a bit. At first he felt uneasy going back to Lima, but he figured that if out of the twenty applications for math teacher that Cassie filled out McKinley was the one that called back, it must be fate. Besides, his mom's still here, and Rachel and Will, and others he's sure he'll remember once he gets used to calling Mr. Schu by his first name.

Finn gets time to practice just that when he walks in mid-morning, saying something about free period and seeing his favorite girls. Finn takes a moment to do the math – Terri's fake pregnancy scandal was 14 years ago, but it is only now, all these years later, that Will finally got the child he has wanted ever since. Though Finn will readily admit he felt a lot of relief when he discovered Quinn's baby wasn't his, he understands the feeling. It's like the "father instinct" kicked in and never truly went away. He is more than ready for these next few months of Cassie's pregnancy to fly by.

The three of them talk for a few minutes, Finn handing Claire over to Will so she can stare at him instead. Cassie flies in moments later, apologizing for being late. When Finn had first heard that his former Glee coach was the first person his wife had met her first day at McKinley he smiled at her good luck; since then, the two teachers sat together and graded papers during their shared free period.

They sit around the table for forty minutes, passing Claire to the next person each time she seemed to get bored with the person holding her, talking about so may topics Finn loses count. As Will and Cassie get up to go back to their respective classrooms, they all agree to meet for dinner Friday night at Will and Rachel's house – convenient, as Finn and Cassie's is still half in boxes in the living room.

Friday comes, and Finn rings the doorbell, glancing around at the structure of the house (he's in construction, so it makes sense). Cassie stares longingly at the flowers on the walkway, holding her famous chocolate pie. Will opens the door, leads them in, and gives them a short tour of the home as Rachel puts Claire down for the night.

After dinner, Rachel hands Cassie an unmarked DVD. It takes Finn a minute to figure out what's on it, but by the time he does it's already loading in the player. They spend the next 20 minutes watching New Directions sing their heart out at nationals all those years ago – by the end the girls are nearly in tears, Rachel with memories and Cassie with wonder. Finn thinks back to the first time she heard him sing, at a karaoke bar just off-campus his senior year. He later told her about Glee, but he doesn't think she understood how good they really were or how much it meant to all of them until right now.

They tell her about it, and have just finished telling her about the time the second year when half the team came down with laryngitis the week before regionals when Cassie's eyes get wide.

"Wait…you were their teacher?"

They all burst out laughing, Rachel nodding and then wondering aloud how that has never come up in any conversation between them yet (Will's face is still boyish, so the age difference isn't obvious). More giggling from the women ensues; they get up, Rachel leading Cassie to the spare room to show her more pictures, reveling in the opportunity to embarrass her lost-and-found friend a bit more.

Finn can hear them talking as he and Will lounge in the living room. At first they talk about things and people from their past, but the ice melts and they transition from former student and teacher to friends. They're talking about Lima's housing boom when Finn finds himself respecting Will more now than he ever did as a teenager. He always felt so alone back then, but now sees that Will, Rachel, and many others were right by him the whole time. He's even more grateful they are by him now.

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Five months later, three days after they bring the baby home, Finn opens the door to find Will and Rachel holding Claire, two packages of diapers, and a large bag of gifts. Baby Kate is sleeping, but Cassie bounds to the door to greet her two best friends in Lima. They sit around the table as Cassie opens the gift and pulls out a monogrammed dance bag. Finn can't help but wonder but what Rachel will do if Kate (or her own daughter) has two left feet – goodness knows Cassie can barely walk in a straight line most days, and he could never do more than a few simple steps. However, Rachel seems unfazed when he brings this up, and starts jabbering about how if you start them early enough you can usually get past the whole pesky DNA complication. Besides, she'll be teaching them, so they're bound to be great at it.

Will chuckles and puts his arm around his wife, kissing her cheek and whispering something in her ear. Rachel smiles, and Finn can't help but smile himself at how happy they are. He's thought about it before, but the more time he spends with them as a friend (and not a teenager) he sees it more clearly. He's glad they have each other, and as he hears Kate's now-familiar cry echo down the hall, he's glad his family has them as well. He squeezes Cassie's hand before walking to the nursery, excited to introduce Kate to two people who shaped his life in many extraordinary ways – he only hopes they'll do the same for her, even if she does wind up horribly uncoordinated.


End file.
